Students of all ages and experience levels often wonder how to appropriately express their professional credentials on their law school application. Whether you have college jobs, an internship, or twenty years of professional experience under your belt, there are a few overall guidelines you can follow to get the biggest application bang from your experience buck.

Admissions Counselors are often asked if there is an optimal time to submit your law school application. The answer to that question depends upon the law school admissions deadlines of the school(s) for which you plan to apply.

When I started law school, I loved it. But I also worried that law school would be too hard. I worried that I would not be smart enough, that I would not be up to the challenge, and that I didn’t belong. I read my assignments too late into the evening and then had trouble falling asleep. What I needed was a little wisdom, some reassurance, and encouragement from someone wise—I needed a book that had not been written yet: A Short & Happy Guide to Being a Law Student by Paula Franzese.

Ok, ok, I know the title’s a bit dated. Fortunately, every movie in the theaters these days is a remake, so you all get the reference.

Anyway, when Vigo the Carpathian comes to spoil the party you need Egon and his Proton Pack, but when the scary stuff is real, and it’s threatening to spoil way more than just a law school party, do you know who to call? Actually, do you even know that you should call?

Bar passage is the gateway to practicing law; indeed, outside of Wisconsin, you cannot practice in the United States without it.  But the bar exam is being transformed, and prospective students should understand these changes and their implications.

BEYOND THE LOOKING GLASS, FROM WATERFALL TO AGILE:

“What, am I looking at?” That’s what I said to myself.  Then I thought, “Sanjay must have sent me the wrong file.”  Turns out, nope.  I had asked him for an audit log report.  My request was neither unusual nor surprising. I was, after all, the new privacy officer for Sanjay’s business unit.  I received an email from him sans subject line with one large excel file attached; also not surprising, he was the lead software developer.  I opened the file and began to scroll.  Scroll as I might, I had not found the end of the document after 90 seconds. I tried scrolling both horizontally and vertically, as if doing so would help me make sense of the multitude of alpha numeric columns and rows that created a data maze on my computer screen.  The scrolling did not help.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) is making changes over the next 2 years that will give prospective law students more options when preparing for and taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).  We know the law school application process is complicated, so here is a breakdown of these LSAT changes to keep in mind as you begin the application process:

Huge data breaches exposing the personal information of enormous numbers of people have become a regular occurrence, manifested recently by hackers’ theft of the data of 500 million Yahoo users.  The risks of data breaches can lead to identity theft and can be magnified as businesses use Big Data tools analyze masses of information to attempt to predict our behavior.

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to law school. You’ve received your acceptance from the Admissions Office and your Financial Aid Award letter. Now what? What steps do you need to take to receive your financial aid awards?

Summer.

It’s that glorious time chock full of barbeques, poolside relaxation, the smell of sunscreen, and sunshine-filled, long, warm days.

Not up here in the Office of Career Services, though. You’d think it was 6 PM on Christmas Eve in the jewelry department at Bloomingdales up here. It’s crazy time! For us, summer means that the clerkship application season is in full gear and Fall OCI is just around the corner. June is the time that cover letters and resumes by the ton are being edited, mock interviews are underway, and there is a massive outreach to the many employers who will flow through our doors later in the summer to scoop up our wonderful students. So as you are preparing for our little OCS “Christmas in July”, now would be a good time to consider some of our tips for job interviews.